God’s breath across the land!

The photos above stir a response not only in our gut, but also in our soul! From the constant need to be charging our phones and laptops to powering our homes and hospitals, we become aware of our over dependence on finite resources. From those early days of coal and hydroelectric power stations we have moved into a whole other world of solar and wind power. Scotland is sometimes termed the “Saudi Arabia of renewables.” In 2020 Scotland generated 97% of electricity from renewable sources, primarily wind. Some people react from the gut, expressing displeasure at the sight and sound of such turbines and their environmental impact across an overwise beautiful landscape. Others, from their soul, sing and sense a new possibility of harmony with nature, and a wellbeing for our planet both present and future.

The blades of these wind turbines are enormous when we encounter them as they are transported on our highways and byways! They beckon us to pause and ponder, to stir and marvel at the genius of such shape and size. At times they cause a whole village to stop and make room with breath drawn!

I return to the writer Mike McCormack and his novel Solar Bones in which there is a moment when these wind turbines become part of a morning radio discussion and a listener calls in to express her opinion. With ears and imagination, listen carefully to what you read and consider your own response. How do you care for this one planet? What are you willing to change in your power consumption for the sake of future generations? Let us now join the novel in the midst of this radio program

…the topic was turned over to listeners who by and large, one after another, echoed what had already been said except for one woman, whose hesitant voice cut across the strident tones of the debate when she phoned in to say that she was living under a hill planted with several of these turbines and whatever about their environmental impact or their worth as a source of clean energy she herself had developed something of a spiritual regard for them as she only had to stand at her back door and look up towards them for a few minutes every day and she could believe there was something sacred about them because, grouped and silhouetted against the horizon, their blades stark against the sky, were they not vividly evocative of Christ’s end on Calvary, crucified without honor, thieves to the left and right of him and, when turning, weren’t they almost prayerful, the hum of their dynamo and their ceaseless rhythm so freely generated by the breeze which was of course nothing less than God’s breath across the land…


Prayer:
Holy, Creator, God,
we delight to breathe the air,
to climb the mountains,
to walk the valleys,
to sail the oceans
to dip our toes
in the ever advancing or retreating
tide.
Holy, Creator, God,
may we walk gently
upon the earth.
Help us to care for
the natural world,
discovering it’s beauty and treasuring it’s majesty.
Holy, Creator, God,
we offer
our intelligence,
our imagination,
our ingenuity,
to make this earth home
for this generation and
for generations to come. Amen.